Papa Vox: news you really didn't want to hear, plus pointless commentary. |
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Saturday,
January 21, 2012
![]() Monday, January 16, 2012 I find it interesting how much I missed over a year, especially those "big" news stories that just whizzed right past me. Looking over the "year in review" style articles is a way to find out if I was paying attention:
Monday, January 2, 2012 Happy New Year, everyone. Let's start off with good news: finally, after some years of waiting, the Volkswagen 282 MPG car will be produced -- in limited edition, for somewhere between $31k and $47k. Pro: it gets 282 mpg. Con: it's small. They call it the "One Liter" car because it burns one liter of diesel it its little 2-cylinder engine per 100 kilometers. On the other end of the spectrum, VW makes a 4.7 Liter behemoth that is actually an armored car, if you'd like to safely cruise the streets of the Top 100 most dangerous places to live in the USA in German uber-techno style. If your a 1%-er who'd like to cruise around in anonymous excessive luxury, you could buy one of the new stealth Ultra-posh Sprinter vans so you can sip Dom Perignon and eat caviar while looking like a delivery van. (Note to the 1%; the super-gleaming black versions with tinted windows and liveried chauffeur are a dead giveaway.) Personally, I'd choose the "One Liter Car" and move to one of The Healthiest Places to Live, and eat lots of Fish to Keep Your Brain Working, and cook perfect blinis and possibly Turkey on the barbecue. Hopefully, no matter where you live, you don't have Mysterious 13-pound metal spheres 3.6 feet in diameter falling on you from space, as they do Namibia. (And "commonly throughout the southern hemisphere" ?!?) Not as radical as it sounds: We need to design a new economic order. And it's true: our current economic environment rewards the rape of the environment, heavily-polluting industries, the destruction of communities, unconscionably bad treatment of working citizens, outrageous profiteering from the pain and suffering of Americans, and general Bad Behavior. And it also, by the way, richly rewards Going To War. It's not like we need to invent a whole new economic model: the "Economic Climate" is the result of very specific regulations, rules and policies, put into place over decades of tinkering, steered with absolute deliberation by the people who have the most influence over regulators and policy-makers. We could have an "Economic Climate" that favors peace over war, small business over large, working class Americans over Corporate Boards, clean industry over dirty, land stewardship over environmental rape, long-term prosperity over boom-and-bust, living wages over slave wages, and humane treatment of citizens over brutality. This is very, very simple, folks. It's all in the rules, regulations and policies. It doesn't take a re-write of the constitution, a "new world order," an overthrow of the government or an invasion of Space Aliens. It's very, very simple: just comb through the massive, crushing weight of rules, regulations and policies, review every single damn one of them, and rewrite them to favor the health and well-being of the people and the planet, instead of favoring the Profit and Power of the VERY FEW. History:
(See
the "Archives" for previous posts -- here's
the most recent)
Proud to be
a "True Blue" American.
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Papa Vox Archives: September through December, 2011 April through Aug, 2011 Sept through March 2011 July through Oct, 2010 Jan through June, 2010 Oct, Nov, Dec, 2009 July, Aug, Sept, 2009 April, May, June, 2009 Jan, Feb, March, 2009 Oct, Nov, Dec, 2008 July, Aug, Sept, 2008 April, May, June, 2008 Dec 07; Jan, Feb, Mar, 2008 Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, 2007 May,June, July, 2007 April, 2007 March, 2007 February, 2007 January, 2007 December, 2006 November, 2006 October, 2006 September, 2006 August, 2006 July, 2006 June, 2006 May, 2006 April, 2006 March, 2006 February, 2006 Hacking yourself: An experiment in the supposition that shoes are bad for you with reviews of various "nearly barefoot" alternatives to the evil shoe. An experiment in lowering the set-point as a means of safe, rapid, nearly-effortless weight loss. The miracle of medical massage. Where do your tax dollars go? Want your vote to count? ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Cool links: Your daily Peanuts ® Astronomy Picture of the Day BoingBoing Investigate: Don't be suckered by a dubious email that smells like an urban myth. Look it up and find out: snopes.com breakthechain.org truthorfiction.com Recommended: David Brin's Blog One of today's greatest SciFi authors. A rational, scientific approach to modern life and governmental policy -- what a radical concept! Websites worth visiting: AMERICAblog Big Brass Blog Black Box BRAD BLOG Center for American Progress Crooks and Liars Daily Kos Dem Underground Economist Greenwald-Salon Groupnews Blog Huffington Post Left in the West Media Matters MM News MotherJones Nation NO QUARTER Susie Bright's Journal ThinkProgress TPMmuckraker TruthOut Papa's Reading list: Good books. Freedom in America today Educate yourself: WebMD.com The US Cabinet Your State Government Executive Orders Amnesty International Recommended Software: Free Anti-Virus programs. I currently use: avast!
Ad-Aware Spybot CCleaner All are free, all work great. They all update themselves when you ask them to -- which you should do once a week before you run the cleanup program. I've never had a single problem with any of them. Firefox is the browser recommended by computer security experts -- it's fast, safe, powerful, and free. Thunderbird is a free email program with superior security and great features. ![]() "Eudora OSE" Eudora-style version of Thunderbird -- free Stable release 1.0 Miro is a free open-source media player. Secure, private -- and it plays just about everything. ![]() LINUX Ubuntu ![]() READ CAREFULLY. By reading this notice [ accepting this material / accepting this payment / accepting this business-card / viewing this t-shirt / reading this sticker ] you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON- NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non- disclosure, non- compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. |
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